Souk Al Ard: Earth Market in Hamra Street

Fresh Organic Produce from the Farms, every Tuesday in Hamra

During my years studying in AUB and living in Bliss street, I discovered Souk Al Ard in Main street of Hamra. It was my escape from the street buzz,  amid the hectic studies and long working hours.
It was my pleasure to meet the local farmers, see their hand made products, and get from their fresh green treasures!! Street Lebanese Heritage food at its best!

Every time I travel back to Beirut, I make sure to visit this farmer's market. It is a blessful experience to smell the saj, and see all these fresh and organic vegetables, and the pickled jars , marmalade...etc
Lebanese heritage food at its best. My last trip in October, I made sure to visit and do some food shopping!

Home Made Food

Dont miss those tasty saj ( saj is a thin focaccia bread) 

Souk El Ard, ( Earth Market), is located in the alley facing Bread Republic.
Organized by Slow food Beirut, the market aims to offer good, clean and fair food.

Pearl as a Guest Speaker at SkillPills

Last Wednesday, I had the chance to talk about my food blogging 6 years experience on Skillpills to a group of people who want to set up a new blog!

SkillPills is a series of workshop, taking place in Altcity in Hamra /Beirut,  where one can learn a new skill in three hours or less!

Last week's SkillPill Event : How to Set Up a BLOG for your business:

The workshop started with  Ziad Alameh, a techpreneur with a love for tech startups. CTO and Co-founder of Pikaside ,  x-Zoomaalian and a computer scientist.

Ziad gave the first the "technical part" of setting up a blog and preparing the template:
His talk mainly covered:

• Setting up a blog from zero
• Customizing the blog to your business
• Putting it online
• Analytics: number of visitors and viewers
• How to draw more traffic to your blog
  

Em Sherif : A Jewel in Beirut

It is been a long time since I blogged. Working in the Food & beverage industry, makes you want to be more delicate while posting about your food adventures.
You would appreciate the brands more, the work behind them, the staff in the restaurant. And mostly the food recipes that were developed extensively to get this perfect taste.
You would feel more the pain, the hectic suffering each day to bring the customers the most delicate food experience. And that's why I was delaying many posts!

One of the brand that I fell in love with in my last visit to Beirut was Em Sherif.
It is a place that combines both simplicity and sophistication.

For the Lebanese Readers: In a world of discrepancies, Em Sherif is the place for someone to enjoy his outing. It is all: an entertainment place, a luxury place, and of coarse a place to satisfy the hunger. A hunger for good food, delicate music/ambience, and a relaxed pampering.

For the non-Lebanese, this restaurant will give you the true authentic taste of lebanese and oriental food in a palace like setting!

Featured in " Culinary Blogosphere of Lebanon"

In  its October Issue, Cloud961 interviewed 3 bloggers from the culinary blogosphere in Lebanon on why  they started a food blog, how blogging about food can make an impact, and everything in between. The bloggers were Strawberryblu ( Cynthia Bu Jawdeh), No Garlic No Onion (Anthony Rahayel), and Pearl's Powder ( Loulwa Kalache).. Yep that's me!

Read full interview here

Pearl's Powder Interviewed in Le Commerce Du Levant

Le Commerce Du Levant magazine*, published its 2013 “Restos, bars, cafes”  special edition for the Food and Beverage Industry in Lebanon in July. ( Read Key Findings Below**)

Cover Page of the Magazine : Juillet 2013

 Luckily, Mr. Thomas Dayer, interviewed me back in April 2013. And I couldn't retrieve a copy of the magazine as I was out of Lebanon. Sweet enough, the media team immediately handed my part of the interview on the same day( yesterday) when I asked for it! :) So...Thank you ALOT! 

I was interviewed among Top Lebanese Food Bloggers such as (No Garlic No Onion, The Burger Tribune, The Permanent Hunger...etc)

Below is my part! .... Now you know a little bit more about me :)

Designing Restaurants for the Visually Impaired

Braille Language in Wimpy

What do you like to order Sir?

What would a visually impaired person answer to the waiter if he have not tasted the food before, if he was not accommodated with the menu? If it was his first time to the restaurant?

We eat with our eyes before we eat with our mouths..And sometimes even we have tasted the food before, if we dont see or atleast read about it, we would be confused to choose our lunch or our dinner.
Surely the sense of seeing is crucial in food choices.
Yet when we consider any visual disability as a difference, and not as a problem, it brings us very interesting concepts and ideas, especially in the food industry.

Some restaurant menus introduce Braille language to help customers with visual impairment. Braille language uses punctures on paper so that it could be read with fingers.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) does not require restaurants to offer Braille menus as long as servers or other workers can adequately read menus out loud. Reading menus is considered an adequate replacement and an option that meets the requirements of the ADA.

Pearl's Powder Finalist on Beirut Social Media Awards

 Pearl's Powder is proudly among the finalists of the "Best Food Blog" ( Category or Circle No 5).

For the first time in Lebanon,  activists on social networking sites will receive awards for their social media work....From the organizers who brought Blogging Lebanon, Social Media Changing Lives, and Geek Fest Beirut 5.0, the Online Collaborative are bringing us this year : Beirut Social Media Awards!

Food Blessed : A CSR in Action

If you have food in your fridge, clothes on your back, a roof over your

head a place to sleep you are richer than 75% of this world.

12.7% is the average percentage of hungry people in the Arab region.

In Lebanon, the population living under the poverty line reaches 28.6 %. HUGE amounts of food are being thrown away after almost every event. People always feel the urge to take action, to find a solution, to not
throw away untouched food, but most of the cases they just don’t know
where to turn to!!

53 % of consumers are willing to pay extra for dealing with a company who is socially responsible.
Ideas are worthless unless one finds the courage and acts upon them.



3 social activists saw a problem and decided to do something about it. They saw it as an opportunity to make a greater good!


BY aiming at 'feeding the hungry, one meal at a time', this is exactly what the foodblessed team has done..

This is HOW they do it:

The Secret to Enjoying the Perfect Cup of Espresso from Daria Illy

A guest blog post from Darine Sabbagh*

 A few weeks back I had the pleasure of personally meeting Daria Illy, the grand daughter of Francesco Illy, who started Illy Cafe and also invented the first automatic espresso machine for all of us to enjoy. Because Illy want to bring pleasure through their coffee, Daria explained to each of the attendees personally how a great shot of espresso should look like. 

Coffee is an art 

So here are her tips for the perfect cup of espresso and how to drink it:

My Graduation Piece

Commencement Exercises in 1930 ( ( Tamir Nassar Albums)

This was my last article submitted to AUB's students official newspaper on campus : AUB OUTLOOK, issue 24, Volume 24.
I had been planning to write this weeks before submissions but couldnt. I wrote it in 30 minutes. So it might not be  a good graduation piece but it does reflect my emotions when I graduated as a Master's candidate in Food Technology, my passion and my career.

“Root and Flow”
Loulwa Kalache, Staff Writer

How could you write about a 6 years life experience in 300 words? I would write a whole book about these life shifting events that I have experienced in AUB.

This article is not for people who graduated but for people who still didn’t .Nothing is more beautiful than fighting for your grades, working hard on your projects and never missing classes. Nothing is more memorable than making Jafet your studying area and “over-nighting” on campus benches when Jafet closes. Or maybe just pretend that you are studying and end up doing crazy things with your friends. Indeed, they always say these days won’t come back, but these are the days that will enable other beautiful days to come.

Chemistry Lecture Hall ( Notice no women in the class! Great Improvement 80 years later in the sciences' field
( Tamir Nassar Albums)

 If I would advise those are still in AUB, I’d tell them not to miss their chances in participating in all the wonderful events. So, plant a tree, become an active member of a club that represents you or maybe that doesn’t, have fun in Outdoors, write in Outlook,  volunteer in the commencement exercises and sign up for the yoga classes in Hostler. Remember though don’t make your interests absolute. Twist them to bring winds of change in your life.

West Hall in 1933, Still the same 80 years later!( Tamir Nassar Albums)

Even your goals are not immutable. You will realize that the dreams you will achieve are not actually the ones that you dreamt of or planned for.

I wanted to do my graduate studies in USA but I ended up I spending three  extra  years in AUB for my masters, and I worked in two different departments .If I were in USA, I would not have become so fond of AUB, or Beirut, or even of my own country Lebanon.

AUB taught me how to be lenient, to be open, and at the same time to be determined of the values that I was raised on. AUB didn’t make me lose my identity but rather built it up and allowed me express it freely. It was on this campus that I got inspiration, chose the proper guidance and built my passion list. It was on this campus; I wore my hijab and found peace with God.

American University of Beirut Chapel, now Assembly Hall ( Tamir Nassar Albums)

The world has to know that AUB nurtures our diverse identities to make them blossom beautifully so that the whole world can see them.

“ I root but I flow” is the motto that I will associate to AUB , just like those 100 years aged trees on the campus, they are rooted but are flowing with their current surroundings, events and people. And this how an AUB graduates is “we root, but we flow”.

The Famous Banyan Tree on West Hall (  Tamir Nassar Albums)

 **Tamir Nassar Albums from American University of Beirut  website,  SAAB Medical Library Archives 

The albums contain photographs from anthropological field trips in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan by faculty and staff from the American University of Beirut in the 1920's and 30's. They were collected by Tamir Nassar who participated on the trips and who also added a few personal photographs over the years.

"Barriga llena, corazón contento "

 The Spanish title says : When the belly is full, the heart is happy

None said it better than the spanish! And trying their food was a prove for this!

But, wait, I really didn't go to Spain. But when you can't go to Spain, eat spanish food! Food does convey the culture of a country, the habits of the people and the inside culture!

I had the chance to apply this motto when I was invited to Phoenicia's Hotel Mosaic restaurant for Spanish week last May !

The food I had in Mosaic proved how much Spain is a melting pot, a pot that diffused a dynamic and gastronomic heritage.

Sushi Safety In Beirut

( Guest post by Food Scientist Rawan Hammoud) 

One of the sushi samples taken for testing

Sushi Popularity in Lebanon:

Sushi as a food product has grown and evolved to create an entire industry of Sushi bars which has found its way to the Lebanese market. Sushi was first introduced in Lebanon upon the opening of “Le Sushi Bar” in 1997. A decade ago there were only two Sushi bars in Lebanon, but now this number has had a fifteen fold increase amounting to about 35 Sushi restaurants in Beirut.  The manager of “Le Sushi Bar” considered the consumption of raw fish not unusual in Lebanon. He maintained that in some areas the consumption of raw meat is normal like in the Lebanese staple “Kebbeh Nayye”.

Do you trust your water bottle?

Water has no taste, no color, no odor; it cannot be defined, art relished while ever mysterious. Not necessary to life, but rather life itself. It fills us with a gratification that exceeds the delight of the senses.”Antoine De Saint-Exupery. 

We take water for granted regarding it as something that is always available, clean and cheap.
 No one can deny that water has become a priceless resource controlling the politics of the world. In some countries, a gallon of water is more expensive than a gallon of oil, leading to water being called the blue gold.

 Lebanon has always been regarded as a country bountiful of water but it is no longer considered as such. Lebanon is facing a major water crisis since water consumption is growing at a steady state due to the growth of population and rapid urbanization. And despite all the rain that fell heavily this winter, drought is still threatening the Lebanese summer since there is no clear governmental plan to use the water efficiently.

A daily star report (Water Crisis Looms in Lebanon) states that : "The problems facing Lebanon are numerous: Illegal wells are introducing sea water into an aquifer and reducing the water table, while industrial waste is polluting the Litani River and turned the Beirut River blood red last month. The nation has few dams and reservoirs to retain the heavy rainfall in the winter months and water officials say consumption is almost entirely unregulated.”

“Tahkik” TV program on MTV documented about “Water Treasure in Lebanon”. The presenter Claude Hindi shed the light on the looming water pollution crisis as well as tackled the issue of bottled water safety.  The report states that 35% of drinking water is sold by companies without any license. And 60% of Lebanese people buy it, especially in poor areas like Beirut suburbs. Astonishing, any person with 4,000 $ can open a place to sell you water and there is actually no proper inspection on them. “Tahkik” went to a place claiming they test and treat their water; they took the samples and microbiologically tested them. Four out of six were polluted and shouldn’t be drank.

Safe drinking water is surely not 100% sterile as it can contain negligible amounts of contaminants without posing any health risk. Contaminants can be microbiological or chemical such pesticides and minerals, but if exceeded high levels can cause illnesses. Tap water may be disinfected with effective, continuous and inexpensive techniques such as chlorine, chloramine, ozone, or ultraviolet light.  As for bottled water, it is disinfected using a more expensive technique of ozone.

Drinking water became merely a business and the report defined four types of this business:

1. Underground resource from artesian wells: need a budget of 20,000 to 100,000 as they apply high standards of treating, purifying and packaging the water by using sophisticated multi-equipped system. However, they constitute 20% from the market.
    
2. Other Companies: constitutes 40% of the Lebanese market and need merely 3000$. They usually purify water through using one equipment only.
3. Water tanks from tap water: located mostly in suburb areas and beside any supermarket, sells the gallon for 750 L.L.
    
4. Water Tanks sold in trucks without any hygienic considerations and sell people one gallon for 500LL. 

The report states clearly that there is a newly implemented law that forces most water selling businesses to purify and treat water properly according to certain standards. They also need an industrial investment and a “republic” approval.  Ironically, the special trucks equipped to transport the water and made completely from stainless steel to maintain quality still under pending approval while other unequipped trucks are roaming the streets.

This negligence has to stop. Our government has to start acknowledging that the real threat to our national security is the one affecting our health whether from the water we drink, the food we eat, the air we breathe or even the traffic jam we get stuck in.  


More info on different types of water treatments
MTV ‘s “Tahkik” Report 

Mommy Made: A factory that needs your votes

Food Security and Hunger is something I have always tackled in my blog. Stabilizing Food Prices and Misconceptions about the Hunger Crisis) . When it comes to achieving food security, food processing comes as the immediate solution.  And the best way is by building simple factories that can use the available resources in the area.

That's what students from the American University of Beirut are doing. The team have designed a full plan that will tackle almost all issues in an impoverished area.  How? By designing a food factory called
“Mommy Made”: and it needs your votes to win in the campaign ( Ripples of Happiness)

Photo from the FACEBOOK PAGE

• HEALTHY MEALS It is a food manufacture that provides socially responsi
  ble production efforts yielding healthy meals for everyone. 

• SELF SUFFICIENCY Mommy Made recruits, trains and employs mothers suffering from financial or physical challenges to transform them into self sufficient persons and have better lives for their families.
• EDUCATION for FREE: In addition, since the manufacture will be located in the basement of St. Vincent de Paul School in Borj Hammoud-Nabaa, the employees children will be able to go the school for free, which will improve the lives of these families on the long term, and take them definitely out of poverty for better lives for their families. In addition, the employees children will be able to go to school for free, what will improve the lives of these families on the long term.

So you will see how it is just any voting campaign. It is for a good cause!

WHAT TO DO?

VOTE AND VOTE EVERYDAY 

Ripples of Happiness" is an educational program that is jointly developed by the Coca-Cola Foundation and INJAZ Al-Arab with primary emphasis on social responsibility, entrepreneurial skills, financial literacy, and workplace readiness.

THE AUB STUDENT TEAM is supported by the Center for Civic Engagement and Community Service (CCECS) and is composed of: 

Abdul Khalek Amal	Political Studies
Awada Sara	Business Administration
Batikhi Omar	Public Administration
Bu Jawdeh Samer	Mechanical Engineering
Chams Jana	Architecture
Chehade Hind	Majorless
El Jarrah Rana	Chemistry
El-Dana Reem	Business Administration
Hobeika Vanessa	Mechanical Engineering
Hussein Judy	Architecture
Moussawi Rasha	RA
Najem Yara	Environmental Health
Oumaya Redouane	Freshman
Ramly Sami	Electrical and Computer Engineering
Salame Clara	Nutrition & Dietetics
Saliba Philippe	Chemical Engineering
Sarieddine Marwan	Civil Engineering
Sfeir Samer	Business Administration
Terro Maya	RA
Zahreddine Rayane	Civil Engineering
Zakhia Erik	Mechanical Engineering

HORECA :A Feast for the Senses

Horeca is the region's largest trade show for both the hospitality and food and beverage service industry. This is the 19th edition for HORECA.
 Date: Tuesday to Friday ( March 20-March 23)
Where: Biel, Beirut, Lebanon
What: More than 350 companies from Bahrain, Egypt, France, Iran, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, KSA, Lebanon, Poland, Sri Lanka,  Sweden, Syria, Thailand, Turkey and the UAE will participate in more
than 10 daily events.
Find the Full program here.

I will be attending Horeca 2012 ( As Al-Wazir invited me)  to check the latest news of the Food and Beverage industry in Lebanon and the region. Besides the companies' exhibting their products, there will alot of live shows, symposiums and contests ( Check the events  below). I will also be interviewing owners of Lebanese food industrialists to see their  future expectations, their fears and their innovations!
I think it is interesting that this show is taking place just recently after the scandals of selling expired food in the lebanese markets. So what will these exhibitors have to prove to the Lebanese? Let us wait and see these few days!

Matteh, A Healthy Traditional Drink

Throw away your energy drinks! Matteh is much better! 

In winter, our house was like a walk-in industrial freezer. So we had to keep ourselves warm with a heater, and surely with food and drink.
Cocoa milk, hot custard, rice and milk ( riz bi haleeb) were always there to keep us warm and give us energy. Not to mention the whole set of hot drinks, green tea, black tea, zhourat ( i.e flower mix ), rosemary tea, ..and finally Yerba Mate.
Yerba mate was our afternoon tradition, sipping it while eating a chocolate bar aside!
Even during Ramadan, mom made it custom for us after we break our fast to drink matteh ( the lebanese pronunciation). Drinking quinched our thirst, rehydrated our bodies, gave us energy and eased digestion!
Below will be the scientific proofs for all what we felt after drinking it.

History:

Yerba mate has indeed an exquisite history. It is not Lebanese. It is originally a South American drink:

• The Guarani peoples of South America were the earliest to harvest and drink yerba mate.  
• They considered the yerba tree a gift of the gods and they called it the "drink of the gods".  
• Yerba Mates was part of their rituals and as used as a currency of exchange with the Incas and the Charruas. 
•  Every part of the preparation and drinking of yerba mate is in fact a ceremony or ritual.
• When the Spanish conquistadors came to Argentina early in the 16 th century and found the indigenous people drinking yerba mate, they tried the tea, liked it, and learned how to brew the tea.
• This created a demand for the tea all over Europe and by the 1600s the Jesuits were harvesting and cultivating it on yerba mate plantations. It was called the "Tea of Jesuits".

Today it is being cultivated on plantations in parts of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay. Many attempts have been made to cultivate the herb in similar areas on other continents, but outstandingly they have all failed.
The custom of yerba mate from processing to consumption has basically remained unchanged from early times.
The huge Lebanese diaspora that reside all over the world and mostly in South America, brought this drink and habit to Lebanon when they came back.
Drinking matteh or yerba mate in Lebanon is mostly common among those who reside in the mountains.

Nutritional Content:

Rotten Meat and Rotten Laws!

Police Arresting 3 for rotten meat? ( Read more from Daily Star)
 Stunning news?
 Not really! In a country where chaos is the norm, I wasn’t surprised when I heard the news of spoiled meat. Not surprised, but sad. Why this negligence? Why this ignorance? And mostly why this lack of truthfulness?
Selling food after their expiry date is becoming almost a legal thing to do.
Although we do have a consumer protection that belongs to the ministry of economy and who is responsible in inspecting food suppliers, supermarkets and restaurants, it is still lagging behind. The inspectors are either not enough, or not doing their jobs properly, or ( I am not implying this on all of them), they are being bribed to hide the truth.


The head of Consumers Lebanon said to Zawya:"That these recent seizures of spoiled food by the Consumer Protection Office are merely a media stunt that only scratches the surface of the problems of food safety in the country!"

But the director-general of the Economy Ministry, Fouad Flaifel, denied that the recent confiscations were a media stunt, and said they were part of the daily work of the office.

I walked around Beirut in the weekend to check whether this news affected the public. It seems it didn’t. All restaurants were packed with cravers for food, Hamra was full, Downtown and Zaitona Bay.
( I also started a question on my facebook page : Pearl's Powder)
Trusting the place where we eat is very crucial. I personally prefer to eat my own food even if a restaurant has a good reputation.

Lists of these places have been circulated around the net, LBC group even posted them. Monetary fines were implemented on the owners but sadly, some were reduced as if the citizen’s health and life is not taken into consideration!  It seems we, humans are becoming a cheap item nowadays and no one cares if we get poisoned or died the next day.

Unless there is a death case, juridical system in Lebanon states that the courts usually do not sentence anyone to prison. And actually there was a death issue happened in summer(check previous post), and no one was blamed. There is always some kind of bribery or a political “help” that will save the restaurant or food supplier.

The food and beverage industry is a great source of income for the Lebanese and is a great attraction for tourism. Can Lebanon afford an economic loss because of this damaging reputation? Can’t laws merely be amended properly?
Why do politicians have to protect one illegitimate person on the sake of the whole population? 
It is the time for the Lebanese to stop pretending that nothing will happen to them when they eat spoiled food. Indeed, it is the time for them to become aware and demand clean food for the sake of their health and their economy before it is too late.

See also: My letter to the Lebanese Syndicate of Restaurants

Sea Food Night!

Featured and written by Strawberry Blu and Pearl's Powder

Shrimps Ratatouille! 

After the revamping of the luxurious Phoenicia Hotel Beirut’s Mosaic restaurant, the restaurant is aiming to take us on a voyage to a new country to visit the folklore, traditions, costumes and mostly taste the exquisite cuisine.
The week I and Cynthia ( from Strawberry Blu) visited was the French cuisine promotion with the 60’s Photo exhibition at Mosaic.

Kashkaval Cheese Production in AREC

"Cheese - milk's leap toward immortality" Clifton Paul Fadiman

I have been always fascinated by cheese. Its hundred varieties, hundred of flavors and odors...Its texture , the way it melts , the way it squeezes between our teeth. 

And I always thought what had occurred to our ancestor's mind to get the rennet from the stomach of the calves and put in milk to do cheese. It was a Magical moment.

And truly as one said “I just don't see the point of not eating cheese. I mean, if God didn't want us to eat cheese, would he have let man invent it?” 

Even Charles de Gaulle , president of France after World War 2:" "How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?”  

Cheeses might be a mystery indeed. But not if one understands them.

Actually , cheeses with their different varieties are due to different processing methods. This post will be about Kashkaval ( Bulgarian) , which is commonly known in Lebanon as "Kashkawen".
Kashkaval is from the "Pasta Filata " style Cheeses . That is it is  basically like Mozarella, Cheddar cheese, ...etc

First, It was the Romans wanted a kind of cheese that can stretch , and the way they did it was through adding hot water to the cheese curd.

Mr. Samson Atamian* organized the workshop in cooperation with Farmer to Farmer (ftf) NGO and the Nutrition and Food sciences department of  Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences and hosted by AREC .  FtF had already invited Mr. Johnathan Metzig** for training other dairy companies . Mr. Atamian was given the chance to invite and host him for one day at the American University of Beirut. 

 The purpose of the workshop was broadening the knowledge of  the food technology graduate students in the field of  cheese making. Thus, to improve their skills and knowledge, inorder to be able to improve the local food industry .

January News & Announcements

Pearl's Powder blogger  was interviewed by  the Gate's Magazine for the January Issue !

 Thanks  to Lana from L' Armoire De Lana for giving me this opportunity. ( If you love fashion ,you might want to check her  glamorous blog! )

Link to Loulwa Kalach's Interview with the Gate Magazine

Also you might also what to check Paty M from PatyMsNutritionWorld to read her post about the " Social Media Changing Lives"  thank you dinner for all those who participated in the Conference.
The dinner was hosted by Amarress and organized by AUB's Online Collaborative.
(Link to the Post)